The Break-In (2016) – Movie Review

First things first – I apologise for the quiet period over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been completely snowed under with work and dashing back and forth between London and Wales.

You see, I’m a musician by trade (that’s my grown up job LOL) and sometimes I end up away from the home for long periods, with no idea when I’m going to return. Anyway, I won’t leave it this long again – it’s a one-off!

Over to the movie – The Break-In.

For those of you who like scanning through the first paragraph of the review – tough shit!

You’re gonna have to read a little further today.

This is a zero budget offering from director/writer Justin Doescher, and it has it’s ups and downs. Let’s take a closer look…

The Plot

Jeff Anderson and Melissa Joseph are engaged, have a baby on the way, and live in a townhouse next to their best friends, Steve and Lisa. They have been living the perfect life, until a string of robberies take place in their neighbourhood. Each night Jeff and Melissa notice strange occurrences happening to and around their home, and they fear that they’ll be next on the list.

A Fucking Soundtrack – Come On!!!!

Yep, the dreaded nail in the coffin of ALL Found Footage movies – the use of a soundtrack or sound effects throughout the movie!

In this case, it was pretty damning to the project overall, as I thought it had some elements that were pretty impressive. BUT…they opted to use ‘dramatic’ musical sound effects EVERY TIME something exciting or thrilling was happening.

Now, if you plan on making a Found Footage movie, it’s very easy to find out what NOT to do with them – there are millions of articles on this subject online.

The one pitfall every one of these articles covers is the use of a soundtrack on your project – Never, ever do it.

The Break-In makers have decided to shoot on with the film and not read up on any of this advice first – BIG mistake, as the low budget movie really could have been quite good if they’d left out the terrible soundtrack.

Conclusion

As I touched on above, this could have been a pretty decent Found Footage offering. It had no budget, sure, but the actors were not that bad and the climax/twists were quite clever.

Unfortunately the soundtrack is laughable – it’s not just out of place, it’s fucking hideous as well. When it pops up in every dramatic scene – it’s really hard to keep a straight face. It’s a newbie mistake but in this case it’s a very costly mistake.

Normally I would say that this is a decent movie, nice enough plot, cinematography was passable, actors okay…then comes the audio…

I’ve already said enough on that subject.

I really have no more to say on the film as a whole, I’m left regretting their choices on sound etc. A decent watch…but at the same time a missed opportunity due to the soundtrack issue.

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I studied guitar at Leeds College of Music, then went on to Amsterdam SAE. But I’m more a composer these days, and I don’t play as much live work. A lot of what we do ends up as soundscapes for movies, shows, documentaries etc. The main ‘group’ or project we release to is called The Marica Frequency (you can find us at all the online streaming sites like Spotify, Deezer etc).